General Strike Calls
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In another forum post i said that workers should pick fights that they can win or use as symbolic solidarity demonstrations. I didn't recommend a strategy of suicidal self-harm and self-destruction.A call for a general strike sounds oh, so revolutionarrrry, but just what would the political fall-out be from one? If those who genuinely fear Trump is an aspiring dictator and the recent Federal judges restraints upon him shows that for the moment the American much lauded checks and balances of separation of powers seem to have an effect, why should workers instigate action that is guaranteed to bring forth a backlash from the State (Republican and Democrat) and from the half of the American people who voted for Trump and still hold delusions about, that would permit him to exercise repressive measures.Isn't this the time to hold your fire, keep your powder dry, and wait for the appropriate moment – and i'm pretty sure it will come – when the current opposition and the inevitable future disillusioned once they realise they have been duped join forces.I recall from history (although not identical events) in Germany the 1921 March Action buried the workers movement and the subsequent 1923 abortive "uprising" dug its grave even deeper. Polarising the working class i don't believe is positive politics.
The Trotskyist call for a general strike, but now described as a shutdown with optional participation and concedes
Quote:A nationwide general strike, while the most powerful, is not immediately in the cardshttp://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/10/a-socialist-strategy-to-defeat-tr…They link to a very readable Jacobin article that has a similar conclusion which goes even further and describes those general strike calls a "flight from reality"https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/general-strike-donald-trump-womens-ma…
Quote:…even moderately effective general strikes don’t emerge, willy-nilly, like miraculous interventions into national life. They are intensifications and radicalizations of already existing patterns of resistance by the working class. This demand for a general strike looks less like that intensification and more like an attempt to leapfrog all the hard, long-term political work that goes before.At least some of those arguing for the general strike seem to sense that there is an element of bad faith here. For instance, Francine Prose added the qualification, which I have seen repeated in a number of places, that only those “who can do so without being fired” should go on strike. This must be the first time someone called for a general strike but exempted most of the working class.Believe me, I’d love to see a real general strike, a serious attempt at restructuring society, not just lopping the head off the Republican hydra. But there is no royal road to revolution, or even to a true mass movement for social changeTheir main problem is Trump instead of capitalism. Donald Trump can also be removed by the ruling elite and the same problems will continue
I agree with you that that is their motive, Marcos.But in their arguments and justifications used if you read your articles, they declare such an action will be a springboard for a revolution…even if they don't define what that is, and when they do, it is merely a list of supposedly radical cosmetic changes to capitalism. I think the Jacobin article is accurate in its analysis…such people making an appeal for a general strike are fantasists …and are being extremely dangerous to the working class movement.It seems to me that there now exists a vacuum of ideas and as we know nature abhors such a state and will fill it up with anything at hand it can suck in, no matter how nonsensical or ridiculous.
The vacuum has existed for many years. The election of Donald Trump is an indication of that vaccum, and the workers are completely divided ready to fight against each others to defend the interests of their rulers. The Leninists and leftists are masochists-sadists they beleive that by motivating some workers to be killed is the initation of a revolution.
The vacuum is around the world. In Mexico there was a big protest against Donald Trump but they also have their Trump who wants to be elected and to compete with the Zapatista There is also a Trump inArgentina
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